


Five Times Teleportation Failed

by bob_fish, enemytosleep



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst and Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Essek POV, M/M, Missing Scene, Pining, Spoilers ep124, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29235153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bob_fish/pseuds/bob_fish, https://archiveofourown.org/users/enemytosleep/pseuds/enemytosleep
Summary: Essek glides over the snow-covered tundra in silence. The blinding glare of the morning sun seems to reflect from all directions simultaneously — and he is rapidly developing a headache.The tinted goggles that could have helped with this very problem are on his office desk back at the outpost. He’d simply meant to pop back to Rosohna for perhaps an hour, then return straight to his new abode in the Biting North with the research volumes from his library he’d learned he couldn’t do without and the supply of blank transcribing journals that he’d learned the outpost lacked. Essek never intended to see the sunlight on this quick errand, after all, and he was always loath to don the goggles for the visible, undignified rings of pinched skin they left around his eyes and nose. Despite all the things he’s had to relinquish control over, or perhaps because of that, Essek finds he still cares about appearances.Of course, things did not go to plan._________Or the fic where Essek “Teleport Champ” Thelyss spends his free time performing risky teleports For Science while ruminating on what sent him to Aeor in the first place.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 40
Kudos: 150





	1. Chapter 1

Essek glides over the snow-covered tundra in silence. The blinding glare of the morning sun seems to reflect from all directions simultaneously — and he is rapidly developing a headache. 

The tinted goggles that could have helped with this very problem are on his office desk back at the outpost. He’d simply meant to pop back to Rosohna for perhaps an hour, then return straight to his new abode in the Biting North with the research volumes from his library he’d learned he couldn’t do without and the supply of blank transcribing journals that he’d learned the outpost lacked. Essek never intended to see the sunlight on this quick errand, after all, and he was always loath to don the goggles for the visible, undignified rings of pinched skin they left around his eyes and nose. Despite all the things he’s had to relinquish control over, or perhaps because of that, Essek finds he still cares about appearances. 

Of course, things did not go to plan.

Essek has read the reports on Eiselcross and what they say about teleportation hazards: more than once, in fact. He had little else to distract himself with on the long journey to Foren, and, as the roiling of shame and fear in his chest became harder to ignore, he found the need for distraction growing each passing day. 

In the weeks following the armistice, the attention of the Bright Queen and her court had shifted inwards, from the borders of Xhorhas and beyond to the very court itself. Rumors of a traitor grew from mere thought to whispers. As Essek watched his peers at court be scrutinised one by one, it became obvious it was only a matter of time before Essek’s own loyalties came into question. He was a prodigy, yes, from one of the ruling dens, but he was also close with the strange foreign mercenaries who blew into the throne room one day, bringing with them a sacred relic and far too many questions. Perhaps the Shadowhand was _too_ close to the Mighty Nein, those whispers said. He was a prodigy, yes, but he was still young, so very young. He’d heard that line too many times in and around the dens before; it somehow stung even more to hear it now that years had passed since he'd inherited the title Shadowhand or the name Thelyss. 

It stung more that in this, the rumors were somewhat correct. Not about the Nein, perhaps, but absolutely about Essek himself. Young, arrogant, ambitious, and thoroughly selfish. Not to be trusted. Committed not to the good of the Dynasty and its people, but rather to himself and his short-sighted goals.

Essek had put in a request to transfer very soon after the questioning began. He’d needed distance from the capital: from suspicious attentions and from his greatest shame. It was the shame which blindsided him, so intense that he barely trusted himself to meet the eyes of anyone at court, so painful that it stole his rest, screamed and whispered in his head of the cost of what he’d done. Sometimes it sounded like Beauregard, coldly challenging, or like Caleb, hurt and bitter. Rarely, it was the voice of the Bright Queen or of his mother he heard. Most often it was Essek himself, though, listing out the lives lost, the wreckage, the scope of the damage he had done in his selfishness. _And you do not even care for any of this_ , he told himself, _that is the most damning part of it._ The shame was eating him alive. He had to go. 

Now, the loose powder snow kicks up in an icy spray as the wind gusts once more; the sun filters through the crystals, obscuring the crater of Aeor in the distance. Essek has missed his destination by a mile or two. In hindsight, he could have predicted this possibility from the very reports he read a scant week ago. He’s been distracted. He will have to procure a teleport anchor more strongly associated with Vurmas, it seems. The frigid wind seeps through the fastenings of his cloak and the gaps of his hood, and the intense cold burns his ear tips. Rosohna is no tropical paradise, but there is no preparing for a place such as this. 

He needs to stop focussing on the cold. 

Instead, he thinks back on the early reports of the rush to Foren and how Essek had once thought to ask the Mighty Nein here to return one of the many favors owed. Yes, they’d once asked his help to reach Mythburrow, another arctic abyss, but the fact that he’d once meant to volunteer them for this misery doesn’t escape him. Neither does the fact that he later volunteered himself in their stead. 

Perhaps it is a good thing, after all, that they have not contacted him since then, much as he has found himself actually wishing, in the deep of the night, for his attempts at rest to be interrupted by Jester’s chirping voice sounding in his head. It is safer for the Nein that they have separated themselves from him. And wise of them: he has shown himself utterly untrustworthy. They must be hurt, disgusted, morally affronted. He saw a little of it, after they knew. And after all, Essek might have lost their friendship, but no matter how great the significance to him, isn’t this loss less than a crumb in comparison to the terrible losses and harms his own actions have wrought?

He sighs and pulls his cloak tighter to himself against the growing wind. For the moment, it seems the best Essek can do to make things right is to do no further harm.


	2. Chapter 2

Essek leaves the Plandome Paperie with a fresh set of transcription inks he did not need, and which he very easily could have requested on the next supply ship. However, his burning need to _know_ could only be satisfied by a trip in person. He is back in Rosohna again, scant weeks after his departure north. He is also wearing a different face: a young drow student who had once interned at the Lucid Bastion. Ru’vaen was his name — or had it been Roth’mar? It didn’t matter. Essek hasn’t come here to talk; he has come to listen.

News travelled slowly when it came to Vurmas. Few Sendings arrived, and they were boring and routine. This is a good thing, objectively. Yet creeping thoughts ate away at his focus: that he had been found out and that, as he made mundane notes in an arctic outpost the Aurora Watch was circling in on him.

This was distracting him from his responsibilities at the outpost; he was getting nothing done. He had to _know_.

He finds himself oddly dissatisfied to have heard no rumors at all about himself. The shopkeep here is one of his mother’s acquaintances, the sort who would come around for tea and gossip each week. Dierta Thelyss likely only includes this woman in her circle for her excellent access to information, and her eagerness to share it with all and sundry. Everyone who is worth talking about has dealings with her shop. 

Yet about Essek, she had nothing to say, neither to the young student whose face Essek wore, nor the several prominent individuals she served at the counter while Essek lingered quietly, pretending to look over a case full of spell components. Of course Essek is in no rush to be suspected and caught. Yet there is something stinging about returning to Rosohna so soon, and passing through several notable haunts in secret without hearing a whisper of his name? It feels almost as though Essek Thelyss never existed at all. The Dynasty has moved on without him as he freezes in the Biting North, forgotten. He does not wish to be gossiped about, but he also finds he hates not being gossiped about. He is being absurd, as if his ego is the point. 

He slips away into the Gallimaufrey to find a suitable corner to teleport back.

This time, he pulls a sharp piece of wood frame from one of his inner pockets. He cannot help but smile at the memory of Uraya walking into his office to find Essek hacking ineffectively at the doorway with a silvered dagger. Still, this should help with accuracy. 

He slips his snow goggles on — he learnt his lesson there last time — and casts the spell.

He immediately finds himself in the familiar crushing dark of the spaces between planes: cold, dark, and suffocating even in the shortest of moments. It’s an awful, yet familiar sensation that is oddly comforting in its own strange way. He’s taken this step many, many times before, blindly, much like the bold and blind steps he’s taken elsewhere of late.

The crushing vacuum releases him into cold, breathable air and bright light on snow. The first sight he registers, filtered through the snow goggles, is the grand and dizzying drop of the Aeorian crater for which he was aiming. Instinctively, he puts his arms out for balance, then he realises that his feet are planted on the very lip of the crater. He leans backwards, goes to step back —and his other heel slips, his weight tips, and he is falling. 

The slide is horribly fast—his head thwacks heavily against the crater wall, dizzying him. His cloaks drag up beneath his shoulders and nearly choke him, snow and ice jam up one pant leg and into the back of his shirt as he slides down and down. He tries to initiate his hover cantrip, but he is sliding too quickly to think, let alone cast, bashing against the steep crater wall every few feet as he struggles to right himself and halt his momentum. It feels endless—then suddenly he is sliding across the flat packed snow and ice of the basin itself, coming to rest on his back on the freezing surface, eyes closed to the sunny sky above. 

Before he even knows if he can move, he hears the whistles of the outpost guards. So, he had an audience for this mortifying tumble. Perfect. Essek missed being noticed, and the universe, it seems, has granted his wish. Well, at least this time he has survived to learn from his mistake.


	3. Chapter 3

He recognises the mishap almost instantly: the sudden wrenching suction that pulls him into a vacuum, absolutely dark and airless, constricting him with horrible pressure, clamping his arms to his sides and squeezing him as though he were in a great fist—

Yet he can feel the thread of the spell still, his will tugging precisely at the Weave; he _will not_ permit this nothingness to take him—

—and then he’s spat out into the blinding white. He feels a rib crack as the spell error expels him without ceremony. He impacts on hard surface, rolls, face in the snow, and comes to rest face up, numb and gasping. 

It takes a few moments for Essek to come back to himself enough to reach, squinting, for the goggles slack around his neck. Instantly, a blinding pain—sharp, electric—lances from shoulder to finger. He hisses and lets his arm drop. He’s done something rather serious to it: the translocation failure, or perhaps the landing itself. He’s experienced teleportation mishaps before, but this one felt … stronger, more brutal. Almost like a force of some greater will … or perhaps Essek is simply letting the shock of the experience get the better of his rational mind. He exhales deeply as though to release the very thought of fate conspiring against him. Well, now he has an unpleasant journey ahead of him. He’d better not be too far from the outpost. 

He was sure he was improving at this. 

He’d left Rosohna in the early morning. He knows because he’d tried to return to his personal home library and Vurmas again before the watch changed at the outpost; and so by the position of the sun, a painful smudge of brightness in the overcast grey of sky, he is very definitely located on the wrong side of a mile wide river of lava. Well, so long as he can stick the landing this time. He chooses not to comment on the fact that he is standing up from prone, gingerly dusting snow from his cloak with one hand.

There is movement in the corner of his eye. Unnatural flame, yellow and controlled in a low semi-sphere: a fire elemental is poking its head from the cracked, sizzling surface of the river. Ah. Perhaps he will move a bit first, then, so as not to be ambushed while he is focussing his mind upon casting. He feels rattled, agitated, his mind jumping from one thought to another. Automatically, he calls on the gravitational cantrip he created himself so long ago, and as always feels a little more centred and in control as his feet lift from the snow and he starts to glide smoothly away. He need not linger here. 

Experimentally, he attempts to lift his injured arm—but he barely manages to move it from hanging at his side to know that something is very wrong there. His breath catches as he inhales too deeply. His broken rib painfully reminds him that it has been pushed too far as well. 

He grimaces. 

This begins to feel, once again, like the beginnings of some cosmic punishment for all that Essek has done. He’s never been a believer in fate, _per se_ , but he’s finding this notion keeps returning to him, ever harder to shake, despite everything he knows. Essek has studied and seen the countless threads of possibility that unravel in an infinite number of potential futures from each waking moment. Every choice has more than one outcome; there is no one predestined course through time … and yet still, the feeling tugs at him that his choices have dug him into a pit from which there is no escape.

What was it that Caduceus had once said about fate?

There’s a heavy splash of wet snow in his face—the powder beneath his feet _erupts_ —and something springs upon him, a sudden collision of teeth and claws and thick-scaled wings spraying ice and wind, pinning him into the snow. The beast squeezes its grip into his fur-lined cloak; the thickness of his outer layers has saved him some slashes, at least for now, but the intense pressure on his arm screams from his previous injury. The weight of the thing makes his chest spasm with pain. If he’d had any doubt before about having broken ribs, that question has certainly been put to rest. 

As the creature, worryingly draconic, shifts its weight upon him, Essek scrambles with his good arm to cast Sapping Sting—he needs to get this thing _off_ —but before he can move, the creature roars deafeningly in his face, the frigid stinking cold of its breath biting at his exposed skin, stealing his own breath from him. He coughs, forces himself to try to move. 

The creature growls—a drake, perhaps? It’s draconic, but small and not bright—and snaps at him again. Essek gasps automatically as it widens its jaws and sinks teeth around his throat—into the furs and wool at the seam of its hood. The delicate skin of Essek’s face and neck throb as cold breath puffs across it. The creature growls low, then starts shaking its head violently, wrenching Essek’s small body as though to snap his neck. Essek’s ribs pulse in rhythm to his own racing heart. He clenches his jaw and pulls his good shoulder, trying to time his movements to take most advantage—

He rips his arm free from the drake’s claws; there is barely room enough in his cloak to perform the somatic movements for the spell, but nevertheless, the necrotic energy knocks the drake prone and thus, it releases him.

Before he can bring himself to stand or roll away, there is the impact of another weight upon him; he hears growls in the wind, and his face rubs roughly against a section of dry, partially frayed rope that is very worryingly thick. 

In the dim of the winter storm he can make out the shapes of them. Two, three, five large hulking bipedal creatures covered in shaggy white fur. Yetis. This is very much going to be an issue. 

There’s a sharp jab to his ribcage that seems to break skin, making him curl up and hiss automatically. They’ve poked at him with some sort of spear or lance, almost cursorily, and their conversation sounds casual, disappointed—and it does seem to be conversation. Essek would almost find this interesting if his life wasn’t currently in the balance. From what he has read on the ecology of yeti, he has a strong suspicion that they are lamenting there’s so little meat on him. 

He fumbles with the component pouch at his right hip with numb, tingling fingers. Of course he can only reach it with his injured right arm, but he will absolutely not let _this_ be his end. He struggles to be discreet while gritting his teeth against the weight of this net and the pain of his injuries. From the corner of his eye he can see that one of the yeti is gathering the corners of the net; another is idly scratching the drake’s cheek as though it were some obedient pet. If he can take them out in one fell swoop, he might just make it out of this. His fingers brush over the sharp edges of a silky stone within his pouch. Ah, yes, here it is. 

He palms the onyx, willing himself not to drop it, and lifts his left hand carefully. He barely has enough room to trace the spell’s somatic motions, but he _will_. He clenches his teeth, and drives the flesh of his thumb down hard onto the sharpest point of the onyx so as to draw blood. As he begins to murmur and gesture, one of the yeti has just enough time to turn and blink in confusion and alarm—and then the sphere of darkness takes the creature and his companions, and their cries of pain and fear are cut off by silence. 

Horribly fast, the sphere claims the edges of his outer cloak and the net—Essek barely manages to halt the Dark Star before it tugs him in, too. He holds it in place, calling on his whole being to concentrate. 

There’s a sudden howl that cuts through the ringing in his ears, and the sound of large feet impacting on the snow. One of the creatures breaks out of the other side of the sphere and gallops away on all fours, whining. The sound grows further away. Essek does not drop the spell. 

Soon enough, it reaches the natural end of its span, and he watches the sphere fade. A circle of fine grey dust coats the snow where the sphere had been; it blows away in the wind. Some of it reaches Essek, and he rolls and coughs as the stink of charred flesh and lightning invades his nose and mouth. Where it was cut by the Dark Star, the net rolls with him. He finds himself lying on his back, mostly freed. His pain and fatigue roll in upon him, redoubled. He closes his eyes and pants. 

Well, now what?

Unfortunately, that Dark Star has cost him his ticket back to the outpost. There is no help for it now: he will have to wait several hours to trance and recover his strength, both physical and arcane. This is not an ideal spot, especially given that yeti escaped to tell their fellows about the scrawny, deadly little thing that murdered four of them; he should probably move—but Essek is _tired_ , and in more pain than he has ever been in his life. Moving brings with it the prospect of some new arctic horror ambushing him and besides, the freezing chill of the wind is now finding its way through his dishevelled layers of clothing, creeping into his bones. The prospect of being discovered while resting is the least unpleasant of his current poor options. 

Essek pushes the remnants of the rope net from him, wearily, hissing as he has to raise his arms to shrug it off. As he digs back through his components, he calls to mind a spell he has been preparing in recent weeks for the first time in half a century.

The small crystal bead refracts the lowlight of the morning onto the white fur of his outer cloak. It seems so surreal to actually be casting Tiny Hut now, in the wilds, as the spell was likely intended. Some of his earliest lessons in the manipulation of time and gravity had breached the subject of such spells, and how the more traditional branches of magic had only tapped into the tiniest possibilities in the cosmos. Essek has actually never cast this spell outside of a lesson setting. 

Well, he supposes there is a first time for everything. It is only after he’s completed his casting and the walls of the dome shimmer into welcoming, warming being around him, that he realises he is still sitting on wet snow. Surely people don’t simply take their rest on that? 

It’s likely foolish, but Essek has played the part more than enough times now to truly care. With a practiced ease, he flicks his good wrist and forms a Pulse Wave. The pressure of the spell instantly shoves the snow before him out and away. There’s a certain satisfaction in the force of it. It’s not perfect, but there is now a patch of frozen tundra newly revealed within the temperate safety of his Tiny Hut. It at least makes him feel a little more in control of the situation, which in reality the last ten minutes or so have been so thoroughly, wildly out of control. 

Of course he has no bedroll. Despite thinking enough to prepare an arcane shelter, he didn’t anticipate this. It seems he never does. What will it take for him to start learning from his mistakes?

As Essek’s shivering eases in the temperate air of the dome, he feels able to shuck off his outermost layer. His outer cloak was made to provide some protection from the elements. Folding it one-handed, he creates a sort of cushion; then, upon reflection, unfolds it so that he can ease himself gingerly to lie down, cushioned a little from the freezing ground. His right forearm and wrist are noticeably swollen now; he tucks his arm against his chest, wondering if a cantrip or two will help him craft a makeshift sling. He is too tired to think about it. 

Still, he has survived, and he has a modicum of comfort and safety in which to nurse his wounds until he is able to attempt another teleport. Perhaps a Sending to Uraya is in order? Essek’s presence is absolutely going to be missed in Aeor this morning. He’s too far out for a search party to retrieve him, so he is at least spared that embarrassment. He closes his eyes and lets out a slow, careful exhale. All that there is to do now is rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Ice Drakes](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/dragons/drakes/drake-ice-tohc/) and [drake companions](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/animal-companions/drake-companions/) are older edition/Pathfinder things that felt appropriate for the setting.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: this chapter contains Essek’s musings about the unsubtle threats Ludinus Martinet and Trent Ikithon may have made to him offscreen following the peace talks. There’s nothing too graphic here, but do be advised for mention of canon-typical Trent fjuckery in this chapter _only_. Please feel free to skip to the next chapter!

Essek weaves through the Port Damali evening crowd with all the practiced grace of a twenty-foot udaak. He has never gotten used to crowds like these; in the past he has always been the sort to send an assistant in his stead, or for more personal projects, to discreetly visit favored shops in the off-hours with the precise intent of avoiding everyone. 

The Beaded Alley is a bustling hub of commerce with garishly colored street-cobbles and a rainbow of market stalls on all sides. It’s practically offensive in its loudness, hundreds of voices gibbering in the Common tongue, while multiple musical performances blend and overlap in jarring competition as each group attempts to earn the most tips. It grates at Essek’s inner calm, and he finds himself once again huddling further into the folds of his heavy cloak.

It’s also _hot_ here. The slap of warm air against his skin was pleasant for a full minute, but that quickly dissipated as the heat and the stickiness thawed his bones; the thick humidity of Port Damali rivals the arctic sleet of Eiselcross in how quickly and thoroughly it soaks his clothing. He has his thickest cloak folded over one arm, but he is still dressed in winter wools. Sweat prickles under his arms and drips down his ribcage before soaking into his waistband. His brilliant plan feels more and more of a miscalculation now. He’d assumed it would be worse to return to the North underdressed than to go south overdressed—he has had quite _enough_ extended treks in the frozen wilderness now—but his wristpocket is only large enough to store his spellbook, which means that he has chosen to arrive in the Menagerie Coast in full winter gear. He unbuttons more of his shirt, but there is only so much he can adjust without altering his physical shape too far beyond the illusion he currently wears. 

His illusion, of course, is dressed far more comfortably for the climate: a local elf with dark brown skin and a flick of black hair, dressed in rippling summer linens and silks. It’s difficult not to feel an irrational stab of jealousy of this alter ego, breezing through the market at ease, unburdened by past or future. Essek sighs—then is immediately irritated by his own self-pity. 

There’s a stall up ahead where a halfling woman is shaving ice off a block, then deftly drizzling over brightly coloured syrups and chunks of fruit. Essek hasn’t seen anything that might be described as fruit in weeks. Why not? He finds himself pausing to order the usual in his Rosohna-accented Common. His foreignness seems to go unnoted amid the hundred accents of the crowd. 

He drifts towards a fountain with a stone step around its rim, which numerous passersby seem to be using as a bench. He skims his mantle under him and sits, self-conscious, as he digs the wooden spoon provided into his cone of shaved ice. 

So much is happening at the outpost right now. Orym’s delving team still hadn’t reported this morning. The thought nags at him; it has been six full days since their last Sending. The situation can be played down no longer: this is a missing team. Of course he knows that such things will happen. Eiselcross is a dangerous place in itself; these are simply more names to be added to an ever-growing list of those who have gone missing in the hazardous environment—and yet, _he_ is in charge of Vurmas now. Since his arrival, he is finding he can’t help but feel responsible each time a life is lost. Everyone knows each other at the outpost. It somehow feels more real now, more personal. He _knew_ Orym and his team, had heard his awful jokes in the mess hall and struggled not to join in the laughter. 

There is an unfamiliar concern roiling in Essek’s chest, a concern about being away from Vurmas too long, despite the inherent dangers of him being in a known location for a prolonged period of time. The ruins of Aeor are difficult to reach, but not impossible. It’s not like he hasn’t seen the reports each time there is a run in with an empire party.

The next one could be sent for Essek.

He takes a mouthful of sweet, berry-flavoured ice and looks out at the crowd. Despite the heat, the noise, the smells, it somehow seems almost like a picture, distant and unreal. It strikes Essek how far he is from Aeor, from Rosohna … from home. 

He might never return home. 

This is not a new thought. Leylas Kryn has a long life and a longer memory, and once Essek is found out, there is no possible penance to be served—not for selling a relic of the Luxon, _two relics_ , the very foundations that Kryn society had been built upon after the ruin of Lloth. Essek has never fully accepted the Luxon as divine, but … recently he has come to re-examine his confidence that the beacons are simply powerful arcane artefacts from a previous era. They are ancient, powerful beyond any individual mind’s reckoning … who is he to say? Perhaps it might truly be an old god lying dormant through the ages. Essek never paid his religious tutors the same mind as his lessons in the arcane; and more and more, he is coming to realise that his own knowledge is far, far outweighed by that of which he knows nothing. 

Far north, in Aeor, Orym and his team are possibly stranded, very likely worse. Here in Port Damali, the crowd ebbs and flows and the cone of dripping fruit ice in Essek’s hands chills his fingers. He exhales— 

_So the Shadowhand has left Rosohna._ Ludinus’ voice vibrates in Essek’s mind. He represses a wince. _Whispers can be dangerous things, boy. Do remember I like knowing where my assets are at all times._

“I have not forgotten,” he murmurs into his fruit cup. A human woman next to him turns and eyes Essek for a moment before going back to her own conversation. He decides to finish his ice elsewhere.

He moves aimlessly through the market streets. Cool streams of sticky fruit water drip from the seam of the wax paper cone, tickling his palm before falling off his skin. The soggy fruit smells sweet, but truth be told, Essek has already lost the taste for it.

He is hot, uncomfortably sticky, and now haunted by the words Ludinus used at their final meeting after the prisoner exchange at sea: how Essek would do well to remember which faction scratched his back with their willingness to research that which he could not. How the Cerberus Assembly had kept his secrets when the time to reveal spies had come. Essek had not felt particularly welcome in that moment to point out that the Assembly had not, in fact, shared much information at all in the time they’d held the beacons. He’d learned more in one night at a strange dinner party than in years of secret meetings. Still, the image of Adeen Tasithar, dishevelled, chained and imprisoned on an Empire ship lingers in the corners of his mind. 

Adeen had committed his own crimes to be certain, for which there would have been a reckoning. Yet that sentence, awful as it was by the standards of the Dynasty, was at least a known quantity. To be placed into the hands of the Cerberus Assembly is to be sent into unknown horrors. Perhaps the King set Adeen’s fate. That would be at least better than the tortures the Assembly might inflict upon him in the name of research. Essek had only had few meetings with Trent Ikithon, and yet he felt far too well informed: that man would harbor no mercy and no limit to what experiments he might perform. 

Essek’s shoulders tense against his urge to shudder. He remembers Trent’s hot breath, steeped in the rank of ill health as it washed over his cheek and ear. His voice had been a grating whisper, Essek remembers vividly, the harshness of it as jarring as the realization that Trent had been speaking in accented Elvish, rolling out the syllables slowly, one by one, as if to leave no doubt that he was making a point. 

_A curious thing, these beacons … in your own words, you drow worship them so avidly. I wonder at that. In my studies so far, it seems quite possible to bind one’s own essence to the beacon, of some potential timeline: what if these beacons were merely soul cages on a massive scale? A wise man could truly put the souls within to harness …_ Trent had drawn back just far enough to look Essek in the eye. _With a drow prisoner or two and a reliable cleric on hand, one might obtain some remarkable data…_

The attempts to intimidate him were so horribly obvious, yet no less vile. Trent Ikithon, speaking his veiled threats and his derogations of Essek’s people in Elvish, the language of scholarship, as if he had more claim upon it … Essek scrubs his hand over the ear Trent had spoken into. He can practically still feel the hairs of his skin standing upon end. 

He wonders whether there is anywhere safe for him now in Exandria. From what he has gleaned from Caleb and from that prisoner months ago, he knows the Scourgers are no ordinary mercenaries. Essek knew, deep down, that leaving for Aeor was only delaying the inevitable, but what other choices did he have? If Essek confides in his superiors, he will undoubtedly be tried for treason and executed. At least this way there is the smallest chance for him to make something of himself before his predictable end: to do some good, perhaps. He only wishes it could be _together_ , as Caleb had once promised.

Essek finds a narrow alley between a bakery and a hattery, then abandons the remaining bits of his melted treat next to a barrel there. If Essek is to do any good, it can’t be here, hiding in plain sight. Whatever Essek’s own fate, there may still be a chance for Orym and his team—if Essek acts fast enough. He swings his cloak over his shoulders, pulls the piece of Vurmas outpost from his pouch, and begins to call the spell to mind.

The airless dark closes in. He’s almost used to it now: it crushes him once again, actually _crushes_ , bearing down on his healed ribs enough to cause pain, but he has survived this before … and he will prevail. He gathers his concentration, grits his teeth, sets the pain aside and masters himself—

In an instant, the dark gives way to the soft candlelight of Essek’s office at Vurmas outpost. He is safe. He exhales hard and the pain hits him, buckling his legs beneath him, crumpling him to the floor before he can even grab at something to steady himself. Gingerly, after a moment, he uncurls himself, rolls onto his back. His chest is tight, so very tight. _Breathe. It will pass, after a moment or two. Breathe._

Perhaps it is going to take more than a moment. The pain in his chest surges with each new breath—but pain is temporary, and if he can rouse himself now, there are lives he just might save. It’s time to get to work.


	5. Chapter 5

Essek pushes through wet leaves that are as wide as he is tall. The heat stings his face as he rushes forward, blindly. This is not Port Zoon, but maybe he’s close … he’s sweating already. He doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. His heart is racing in his throat as the sheer panic of being hunted overtakes him. He can still _feel_ them circling in on him, despite the small, rational voice inside his mind telling him that even if they _had_ teleported after him, there was almost no way for them to guess his intended destination—or indeed, where the mishap had dumped him. It would take time to find him again.

He stops, chest heaving and the acrid taste of bile rising to his tongue. What is he even _doing?_

He slumps into a low squat, his heavy woollen cloak slapping against the jungle mud. Mere moments before, Essek was in his office at Vurmas as Uraya casually announced the arrival of supplies and additional guards. Yet something about the way they’d said it—additional, _more than usual_ —had sent Essek’s mind into overdrive. There had been little news from Rosohna concerning the investigation, which some would say was good news for Essek, but he hadn’t made it this far without thinking through more than one potentiality. Little news from Rosohna could, perhaps, be purposeful: to keep him in the dark as they solidified their case against him, to keep him in one place as they closed in around him. When the Mighty Nein contacted him for the first time in weeks to tell him they were in Eiselcross, the danger had felt closer than ever. 

When new soldiers arrived at the outpost, Essek had been overcome by a singular thought: he had to leave, _now_.

Without any further thought, Essek had teleported away from the outpost, fully prepared to leave, and yet not prepared in the least. He’d grabbed nothing, no supplies. He hadn’t even told Uraya, who had been nothing but reliable these past weeks … and now Essek is here, in the middle of some jungle, off the mark from a poorly considered escape plan.

As his breathing slows, Essek starts to assemble his thoughts. He has always found comfort in organisation: lists, charts, numerising, naming systems. He needs to place his racing thoughts into an order in which he can process them. What is he doing? What _will_ he do? 

What are the _facts_ here?

He closes his eyes. The Mighty Nein are closing in on Aeor. Jester said so in each of her messages, and while he has no definitive proof, he has her word that they are heading closer and closer to the ruins. He trusts her word.

The Mighty Nein are being pursued. There was mention of “The Nonagon” and a villain: can he surmise these are one and the same? Or are their troubles as multifaceted as his own? He unfortunately has not had any luck in researching the terms Jester had used; his Aeorian library is beyond miniscule, and he has not felt confident returning to Rosohna. 

What else does he _know_?

He knows he cannot help them from here. He knows that he wants to help them. He _should_ help them, for they have done nothing but show him kindness that he does not deserve. He’s not sure what help he could even be to them now. His contacts, his supplies, and his information is limited now in Vurmas. While he is well-studied in his fields of interest, he is in his first life … his only life. He has only a short century of learning to call upon. Still, if there is even a chance that his knowledge or skills could be useful, he needs to be ready to supply them. He could look into alternate means of researching their queries. 

He remembers fondly the evening he shared his spellbook with Caleb; it’s a memory he recalls often, especially as of late. It was a simpler time, when Essek’s interests ruled his life, and his interest in the human wizard meant he could indulge himself in some low-level treason. The conversation that day had been delightfully playful, cerebral, stimulating in ways Essek rarely felt stimulated … at least in the sense that none of his romantic assignations had ever had any interest in the manipulation of time and the Weave itself. Caleb was not one of Essek’s casual encounters, though. Perhaps at one time that was a fleeting fantasy, but things … things have changed since then. Essek has longed to see this man again: that quiet laugh, those shared glances. He knows it will never be the same, now. That unrealised future is just another wasted branch of potentiality, lost among many.

Essek exhales forcefully. That interaction was always doomed. He simply fooled himself for too long. Perhaps, he would tell himself, he might still get away with it all: continue his life, bury the consequences of his actions, journey deeper into the unaccustomed warmth of friendship with these people. Perhaps he might collaborate again with Caleb, follow that spark of intellectual connection further and see where it led them both. 

It was all foolishness—and the terrible consequences of Essek’s actions reach far further than this, he reminds himself. It’s self-centred to be preoccupying himself with lost chances for which he can only blame himself for losing. 

Essek is in a downward spiral. That much he can recognise, at least. He can hardly think clearly, and his state of mind has frayed even more since he first heard from Jester four days ago. 

Will he actually get to see them? _Should_ he see them? Are they being followed by other interested parties, like the Cerberus Assembly? He vaguely recalls the Nein have their own ties to the Assembly. Frantic as he is, the details escape him now. 

The Mighty Nein have never been subtle a day he has known them. He should assume they are being watched until proven otherwise. Meeting with them will present dangers from all sides: his flight to Aeor had been meant to separate himself from suspicious circumstance in the Dynasty, but it seems, as ever, that things have followed Essek into the frozen wastes at the edges of the Earth. How dire the Nein’s situation must be to find him there. The Sendings had been from Jester, as always, yet he can’t stop thinking about Caleb’s last words to him. Will Caleb still look at him and see the venom dripping from open wounds? 

He pulls in a breath, deliberately slow. What is he doing, sitting in the mud in the middle of the jungle? He needs to conceal himself, observe his environment, evaluate any threats. 

_Greater Invisibility_. 

As he finishes the casting, it has already occurred to him that he might have done this in his office before teleporting himself halfway across the continent. Never mind that now. Next, orient himself. He sees clearer ground through the undergrowth in one direction. This is something. If he reaches a clearing, he could fly up, gain assurance about any pursuers, and, once above the canopy, verify his location. He pushes aside another armful of broad jungle leaves, and another. Yes, there is definitely a clearing ahead. 

He realises, given the sight and sounds he’s creating as he pushes through massive jungle leaves, he might as well have held off on the invisibility spell. It is in line with his many other choices, all lacking in foresight and wisdom. He can hear his mother’s taunts in the back of his mind, but he has grown self-aware to the point he can now chastise himself for such failings. 

It takes a stupidly long time for him to push his way through without announcing his presence by means of further arcane displays. By the time that he stands in the clearing—damp with sweat, twigs in his hair—it is painfully obvious that there cannot be any competent pursuers here, or they would already have caught up with him. 

Is this really how Essek plans to spend his final weeks? On the run from every shadow? If he is honest with himself, truly honest, his plan to run was nothing more than a child’s play at espionage. He has alienated himself from two of the most powerful factions in Exandria. There is no place on this plane for him to rest should they wish to find him. He has read upon the cosmos extensively, but he has never _really_ considered travelling beyond—certainly not on a permanent basis. Surprisingly, the question he keeps circling back to now is not where he should run, but what he will _do_ with his remaining time. Hiding may delay his demise, sure, but only until such a time that he and his loose end can be ignored no longer. 

The last time he ran, a scant week before, another team had gone missing in the ruins under his watch. It was a small, expected consequence of delving in the wild North, but he has been haunted by the thought that he might have done something more to prevent it … if he had been more present, and not simply physically. Like so many others, they were never found—and now Essek has abandoned his post once again, and to what end? Caleb had talked to him about the long road to redemption, how difficult taking those first steps would be. Is Essek truly considering this in the face of his own consequences? What good could he do for his people, both the Kryn at large and the small contingent of soldiers assigned to him at Vurmas. He’s still not sure, but perhaps if he is to start, this could be the place.

 _We will be at Aeor in a day and a half._ It is Jester’s voice in his mind, unmistakable, but her signature cheer is distinctly, alarmingly missing. _Things are dire. They have lodestones. They want to bring back the Somnovum. Will you meet us? Will you help us?_

She sounds … as desperate as Essek feels. He steadies his breath and responds, trying to inject a note of confidence into his voice. 

“Jester, your words in some ways are alien, but I sense your worry. I am at the outpost southeast of the ruin. Come.”

So it seems he has made up his mind after all. The Mighty Nein need his help, and in order for him to help them, Essek needs to maintain appearances at the outpost. The thought that he up and vanished during the changing of the guard being suspicious does not escape him, but it sounds like his friends need him and his resources, so he must return, and _soon_. 

He wipes the blood from his nose and prepares to teleport back to Vurmas. He’s not yet sure what his next step will be, but he knows he will help his friends in any way he can. He owes them as much.


	6. Chapter 6

Essek pulls his hood tight as he makes his way to the building on the far side of the docks. The afternoon air is chill, his breath visible with each exhale. Jigow is a small village on the northern edge of Xhorhas: a fishing village that Essek had only known previously for the deep sea catches that occasionally appeared on his Rosohnan menu. He is here now on the advice of Uraya, one of the few left whom Essek can trust.

The dock creaks beneath his boots, louder than the crash of water against rocky shore below. He passes a fisherman loading crates onto a vessel; a large man of orcish build, his clothes a mix of thick wool and leathers with fur. He could almost be headed for Foren, dressed as he is, but Essek remembers well the harsh winds of the Frigid Depths. Anyone setting out to sail from this port would be wise to dress the part. 

The man looks up at Essek as he passes. Essek nods, then walks faster. Uraya had said that the residents here were mostly unconcerned with the politics of Rosohna, but that didn’t mean he was particularly keen on being seen by everyone either; thusly, he has changed his face once again. This time he appears as a slender half-orc woman in a plain dress and cloak. He has yet to conduct secret business in an illusion so far from his own build, but he doesn’t want to stand out here. Jester has given him some vexing information over the last few days, and Essek needs answers—the kind of answers only a deep dive of the Marble Tomes could provide. Given the issues that would accompany his going there in person, Essek has had to be somewhat creative. 

He reaches the far side of the dock and the singular building there. He hesitates for the briefest moment—if he’s been set up, he’s about to find out—and then he knocks.

A woman’s voice calls out in an unfamiliar tongue. 

Essek answers with the phrase Uraya had given him earlier today, “ _A shuulkaan duun taash dhec._ ” It is a clumsy and awkward pronunciation, he knows, but the door opens not a moment later.

A small, neat goblin woman nods at him from the doorway, then waves her hand for him to enter. Essek ducks his head as he steps through, hoping to avoid the door jamb with the outlines of what was clearly, in this respect at least, a poorly chosen disguise. The woman closes the door behind them emphatically. 

“I’m Sralvuzze,” she says in accented Undercommon. “Your name, let’s leave it, all right?”

“For the best, I think,” Essek says. The building he’s entered appears to be a personal residence: a family residence, judging by the large rack of clothes strung to dry from the low rafter. The air smells powerfully of coal and woodsmoke. 

“Take a seat, friend,” Sralvuzze says. “I’m fetching your parcel.” She scurries up a tall ladder set against a beam, pushes open a ceiling trapdoor, then disappears into a loft above. 

The chairs drawn up to the large pot-belly stove are small for a drow, and unmanageable for a half-orc. Essek sighs, and compromises with a perch on the lip of a chair. He’s too anxious to settle, but he is also freezing, and the crackling stove emanates a delicious heat. He holds his hands up in front of it, watches the roaring flames through the narrow slats at its front. His life at Vurmas feels far too close to the elements for comfort, but he can already see the differences; the outpost has been set up with Dynasty resources and arcanely-powered comfort. People in this village make their way without such assistance. He looks around him at the hut: the thick rugs hung on the walls, the mildly alarming bearskin on the floor, the flat cooking surface on top of the stove. He guesses the beds are kept up in the loft, where the heat of the stove will rise to warm them. Essek thinks of going out in a fishing boat in the brutal, freezing sea and returning, safe and exhausted, to this small warm place. It strikes Essek once more what a strange and luxurious bubble he has spent his whole life in. 

Sralvuzze is undertaking such a risk for him, and Uraya’s cousin’s son back in Rosohna even more so—and for such a vague lead. Uraya had assured Essek that the Gjonbalaj family, Uraya’s birth family, would be glad to lend a hand in this. Jester’s Sendings were rather desperate and scattered, but she seemed clear that threshold crests were pivotal pieces to whatever puzzle it is that the Mighty Nein have been grappling with. Essek hopes the notes Uraya’s contact has sent from the Marble Tomes’ library might be enough to somewhat fill the informational gap. If only he could have gone himself—but he has pushed his luck very far, both with undue trips home and with risky teleportation. 

The woman returns to Essek with a rolled piece of leather that she unfurls on the table. Apparently, the cousin had made notes from several sources that had then made their way north to this village via river supply ship. Essek couldn’t risk heading to Rosohna himself, and as much as possible, Essek did not want his extracurricular endeavors linked to anyone in potentially unfavorable ways: the Mighty Nein were on thin ice as much as Essek, and any favors for their sake could spoil someone’s reputation in the court. Still, he was lucky the kid had been so prompt in this favor, as the Mighty Nein were now a day past their estimated arrival, and there was no telling how soon this information would be needed—or how difficult it would be to obtain with them at the outpost. 

“Is it all right if I read these here?” Essek twitches a smile at Sralvuzze. “If they were discovered in my office, I fear a connection to your family could be made…”

“Please,” Sralvuzze says, with a wave of her hand. “Tea? You look like you could use it.”

Essek has absolutely no idea how she can work that out through the disguise. His stomach is in knots anyway—but it seems impolite to refuse. He finally takes a seat at the low table. His knees knock against the underside, and he checks his disguise isn’t halfway through the tabletop—then he turns to the notes. 

Essek skims his fingers over the papers, scanning rapidly, and chuckles. The quantity of notes the cousin provided is almost alarming. It takes Essek back, powerfully, to an earlier time when he was freshly granted entry into the Tomes and with a task set about him. He’d ordered so many books from the stacks that his desk was piled with them. He wanted to read every book, every article, all of it. There’s something warming about seeing that same enthusiasm fill each of these rolls of parchment, from edge-to-edge in hurried penmanship. 

Sralvuzze sets a large teapot on the table, and then two cups. Essek glances up and sees a tray, too, loaded with small plates and bowls that are then set down in front of him in any and all spare spots around his papers. “Ah,” he says, looking at the food. Then, realising he should probably express something more polite than surprise, “thank you.” 

Sralvuzze pours strong dark tea into two cups. She passes one to him, along with a small plate and a fork, and then looks at him expectantly. Essek blinks. 

“Please,” she says, in a tone that sounds more like instruction than politeness. “Eat. Uraya tells me you are so young, and so much pressure and stress. You’re too skinny under—that.” She indicates Essek’s disguise with a grand circular wave, as if to emphasise it’s far bigger than he is. She’s not entirely wrong.

Essek looks at his notes, then at the mildly intimidating array of allegedly light snacks, and finally at Sralvuzze. It is immediately apparent that to get to his notes, he will have to partake in some refreshment. There are crisp, seeded slivers of dark bread, a dish of very strong smelling pickled fish—she nods approvingly when he takes a tentative forkful—and in the next bowl, some kind of jellied meat. A saucer of jam is slid over next to his tea, along with some powdery crumbling cookies. 

Essek takes a sip of hot tea and glances towards his notes. He needs to work fast. Sralvuzze is still looking at him expectantly. He has a sinking feeling. 

“Please,” she says. Again, it’s more of an order than a plea. Essek bites down on the corner of a bread rusk. It’s actually rather good: chewy and pleasantly sweet-sour. 

She’s still looking. Essek sees his fate plainly. He loads his plate and picks at it until Sralvuzze smiles and, evidently satisfied that he won’t immediately starve, stops sliding plates and bowls in his direction. Essek supposes that this perhaps is what people mean when they refer to being mothered. 

Finally, he may turn to the notes. It is but a small consolation that the notes themselves are perfectly inconspicuous; should they have been intercepted, the chances of Uraya’s contacts finding themselves on the wrong side of the dens would be slim to none. Lately, Essek seems to have developed the irksome habit of considering the impact of his actions on others.

He reads past a section of notes on lodestones. Jester had used this term once herself in recent Sendings, and truthfully Essek is not quite sure what the Nonagon or the Nein are seeking in Foren if lodestones are indeed their quarry. Such stones were, in fact, not stones, but droppings from a legendary creature of the elemental water plane: a kraken. Essek wonders what other various legendary creatures might have an intrinsic bond to their home plane … and may have similar magics inherent in them as the kraken. Perhaps one might use empyrean blood to attune to Elysium? Of course, this is all speculation. It seems an archivist had once ventured to Vesrah once to document the Water Ashari’s use of such lodestones in a planar gate there. Essek is not sure how this might be related to Aeor, but planar gates are strange, powerful artifacts. 

He skims over a series of notes specifically on the ichthyology of the kraken—an interesting tangent concerning their proposed lifespans—before finding his way to the notes on threshold crests. In the short time Essek has been in charge of the delving of Aeor, this seems more the type of ancient arcane artifact that one might seek in the ruins. He knows that such crests have been linked to the transport of entire locations between planes: most notably the elven city of Syngorn. The elves there had retreated to the Feywild during the recent threat of the Chroma Conclave. He vaguely recalls reading of other locations travelling in a similar manner. Ah, yes, here in a margin there is a brief note on Thar Amphala and its journey from the Shadowfell.

So if this Nonagon were looking to create a portal of some kind, threshold crests would do them no good. These notes well establish that threshold crests _don’t_ create portals, but instead link a physical place from elsewhere to the Material Plane, allowing it then to travel between those planes. There were other terms Jester had used, unfamiliar terms that seemed less involved with the arcane and more of place names, group names. If threshold crests are the goal, then perhaps there is a location this villain is seeking. Perhaps there is a need for both the gate _and_ the crests. There are more questions than answers, here, but this was by means no waste of time. His mind has been so scattered as of late, but this is grounding; the facts are fresh in mind, safely stored in their proper place in Essek’s memory.

Unsurprisingly, these notes serve more as reminders and confirmations more than learning facts, but something about touching the parchment is calming, builds confidence. It’s a drop in the bucket in regards to providing tangible aid, but they have mentioned stones several times, so Essek can at least provide a solid understanding of their arcane natures. Caleb has, in Essek’s experience, been ravenous for research opportunities and may or not already know these things, but it is better to prepare. 

“Well,” Essek begins to gather the notes into a single pile, “this has been most helpful. I cannot thank you enough for this.”

“It’s fine, dear. Anything for a friend of the family.”

“I … I very much appreciate that. Also, on that note,” he stands from the table and straightens the cloak beneath the illusion, “I think it would be best if we burned these: it would be wise if no one in Rosohna could link you to this visit beyond rumor.”

“Not a problem. You’re sure you won’t need them?”

“Please trust that these have served their purpose and more. I would hate for there to be any questions where I obtained them should they be discovered later.”

Sralvuzze smiles and moves to the small stove, grabbing an iron poker from a bin and using it to open the front hatch. Essek carefully gathers the rest of the stacks of parchment and shuffles them into one pile. There is a small part of him that laments this—these notes had been taken with care—but it must be done. He closes the distance, rolls the parchment into a thick tube, then feeds it to the fire within. She uses the poker to push them further into the belly of the stove, each of them watching the parchment edges curl and smolder before bursting into flame.

They stand there for a few long moments quietly observing the flame. There is something cathartic in it. Perhaps it’s that Essek has taken the first concrete steps toward repaying the favor he owes; that the Mighty Nein did not reveal his secrets has not gone unnoticed. 

He is brought back to the present moment when Sralvuzze jabs the fire with the iron poker, tamping down the parchment ash and feeding the unburned pieces to the fire.

“I know that you can’t reveal yourself,” Sralvuzze says quietly, “but you should know that Uraya spoke fondly of you. They said they had not known someone so bright in any of their past lives.”

“Is that so?” Essek wants to refute this, to point out his many failings, but Sralvuzze seems sincere—and Essek doesn’t have the luxury of indulging these negative thoughts, not if he is to make the most of the time he does have.

“That’s the last of it,” Sralvuzze says as she maneuvers her instrument. “I’m no wizard, but I suspect there’s nothing left to piece together.”

Essek leans in. “Yes, I think we are finished here. I will take my leave now.” He looks at her kind face, wrinkles accenting the corners of her wide eyes as she smiles at him. “Thank you, sincerely.”

“You’re very welcome.”

He withdraws the small piece of wood from his components and begins the familiar casting, calling to mind the office he’s come to call home the last few months in Foren. The warm of the fire disappears in an instant as he is surrounded by the lightless void in between—and then, quite suddenly, Essek finds himself standing on the thick rug of his small outpost chambers, the warmth of the Gjonbalaj home now gone.

Well, he should seek Uraya and get a rundown of the night’s activities. 

He drops the illusion of the half-orc woman in the same instant that his feet lift from the floor. When he exits his chambers, the frigid air is full of the sound of bellows and clangs. The daily repairs have already begun. As he makes his way to the war room, beyond the central illusory ice spires that connect each outpost building, a familiar voice enters his mind once again.

“Okay, we’re en route! We’re in the middle of a bunch of spires? What should we be looking for? How do we find you?”

It’s Jester! A relief washes over Essek: the Mighty Nein should have arrived more than a day prior, and he had begun to worry for their safety. Jester’s message continues after a pregnant pause. “Gee whiz, you are great!”

He certainly doesn’t feel great—and yet somehow, it is good to hear. They still have faith in him … or at least Jester does. Time will tell, he supposes. At any rate, the Mighty Nein are here now and in urgent need of whatever help he can provide. 

It’s time to get to work.


End file.
